Blog | Ideas Worth Exploring

The Postal Service requires full addresses on most mail, but this creates unnecessary complications for small local businesses such as pizza parlors and dry cleaners that simply want to send a flyer to every address in the surrounding area. It would be much easier for them to bring a stack of unaddressed mail pieces to the Postal Service and let the Postal Service deliver one to each address.

A recent presentation by Deutsche Post describes the German delivery and logistics company’s efforts to transform its retail network. One particularly interesting innovation is self-service Packstations. Like the U.S. Postal Service’s APCs (Automated Postal Centers), these kiosks allow customers to ship packages. However, Packstations also provide 24-hour access for parcel pickup. Customers can register to receive their packages at any packstation in the country. When the package arrives, the recipient receives an e-mail or text message.

Latest Blog Posts

Nearly a decade since its rollout, the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) — the football-field sized sorting machines for flats mail — is still falling short of expectations. At its inception, stakeholders were optimistic FSS would improve productivity and reduce the U.S. Postal Service’s costs for...

What do Millennials like? That’s the 43 million hits question — as in Google hits. And that’s a pretty good indication of just how focused businesses are on this generation and its rising economic power.

The U.S. Postal Service is no different. It wants to understand how Millennials might...

Latest Audit Asks

The Management Operating Data System (MODS) provides data on workload, work hours, and machine-use. In addition to supporting operational planning, MODS data are used extensively in Postal Service costing and pricing activities. Supervisors may manually enter or adjust employee work hours and...

In December 2016, Congress passed the Federal Property Management Reform Act (FPMRA). The purpose of the FPMRA is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government, including the Postal Service, in managing its property by:

The U.S. Postal Service considers mail to be delayed when it is not processed in time to meet the established delivery day. Delayed mail can adversely affect Postal Service customers and harm the organization's brand.

Comments Wanted

We encourage you to visit our blog, which has a new topic for discussion every Monday. You can also give us your thoughts and opinions about upcoming audits on our Audit Asks page. Please refer to our comment policy for further information.